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AMAZON PRIME DAY

Tuesday, July 12, 2016 is a special sale for Amazon Prime members. It’s Amazon Prime Day.

Last year, when Amazon Prime Day made its debut, Amazon’s sales exceeded their previous Black Friday record.

It is a huge day for Amazon. It’s a huge sale for Amazon Prime members.

And many customers will be signing up for Amazon Prime memberships or trials to take advantage.

I remember waking up early in the morning last year to discover that the items I most wanted had already sold out. The most popular Kindle devices sell out fast. But there were deals going on throughout the day. When a great deal starts, you need to act fast. You can sign up for notifications, which may help.

Prime Day isn’t just about books. In fact, if you browse the offers, you’ll see all sorts of sales in other departments, and books don’t jump out at you.

However, most customers think of books when they think of Amazon. So what’s apt to happen when millions of people buy other products at Amazon is that they’ll shop for books, too, even if books didn’t bring them there in the first place.

Department stores made Black Friday famous. Amazon has done the same thing, but even better.

Whereas thousands of stores compete for Black Friday traffic, Amazon created a special day in the middle of July, when sales aren’t normally so hot, and Amazon did this in such a way that no other stores are competing for Amazon’s traffic. It’s ingenious.

On top of that, Amazon is using the day to sell all kinds of products. So this is a big boost to Amazon’s usual business, and gets some customers in the habit of thinking of Amazon when they’re shopping for other things besides media products.

For authors, hopefully this boost in sales will trickle down to books, if not on Prime Day itself, hopefully sometime after. As more customers get into the habit of shopping with Amazon Prime, that will hopefully lead to more books being read.

Instead, they advertise Kindle Unlimited, which makes sense. Customers interested in reading free e-books are more apt to appreciate Kindle Unlimited than Amazon Prime (since they can only borrow one book per month through Prime).

However, Amazon Prime customers can still borrow one KDP Select book per month, as in previous months.

But many Prime members are confused about this.

They don’t see mention of Prime on product pages like they have in the past. So many customers are wondering if they can no longer borrow books through Prime.

The trick is to log into the Kindle device, rather than browse for books on Amazon’s website.

Amazon Prime is still great for free two-day shipping and for video streaming. Amazon is still advertising Amazon Prime for quick shipping of print books and other physical products.

But Kindle Unlimited is the better alternative for reading ‘free’ books. Well, they aren’t free, but once you pay the $9.99 monthly fee for Kindle Unlimited, you can read as many KDP Select books (and 100,000 others) as you’d like.

Some customers are switching from Prime to Kindle Unlimited, but some customers have both, and yet others have never had Prime but are signing up for Kindle Unlimited.

Those who are keeping Prime only: Yes, you can still borrow one book per month from KDP Select. Be sure to browse for books from your device, rather than searching on Amazon’s website.

UK and other European customers are eligible for Amazon Prime, but presently Kindle Unlimited is only available for U.S. customers.

Kindle Unlimited customers have access to 600,000 titles, whereas Prime customers have access to 500,000, so there are a few books that Kindle Unlimited customers can download, which Prime customers can’t.

How will this impact authors?

If Prime memberships decline, this may impact authors a couple of different ways:

Fewer sales of print books. For one, Prime customers qualify for free two-day shipping of eligible products. Prime customers may be more impulsive shoppers because (1) they don’t have to spend $35 to qualify for free shipping and (2) making more purchases than they would otherwise may help them feel like they’re getting their money’s worth.

Fewer borrows of e-books. Prime members who own Kindle devices can borrow up to one Kindle e-book per month. Authors enrolled in KDP Select earn royalties on borrows. But don’t worry too much: If there are fewer borrows, then each borrow will pay a somewhat larger royalty. If the number of borrows does drop, the effect may be negligible (unless Amazon reduces the monthly fund for borrows).

Hidden Surprise?

Suppose the extra $20 does deter some customers from keeping or joining Amazon Prime. It’s possible that Amazon will roll out some new Prime benefit to attract new customers. Presently, Prime benefits include free two-day shipping on eligible products, borrowing one KDP Select e-book per month, and instant streaming of a wide selection of videos. Perhaps something new is on the horizon. If so, that would help to attract new Prime members.

Is Prime Worth the Money?

If you’re thinking about signing up, you can sign up for a free trial by March 20 and lock in the current rate of $79.

If you’re a current Prime member who has recently renewed, you don’t have to worry about paying $99 until it renews again. If, for example, you signed up in January, the price change won’t impact you as a customer until January, 2015.

Did you know that you can share your Prime membership with family members living in the same household? Here’s how:

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About my blog: As an experienced self-published author, I created this blog to help and interest other aspiring writers. I hope that you will find some useful information here.

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